Personas: Beyond the Basics

This workshop will be held in English.

HURRY! The first 40 to sign up get a free copy of “The User is Always Right” on arrival at the workshop.

This workshop is intended for professionals working with user experience and business strategy on the web.

Many of us who work with design and user-friendliness in Norway, now routinely create and use personas to help projects develop more user-focused web sites. And we have the same questions: Are these personas really representative for our users? How do we know we’ve got the right ones? And are we using them the right way? What can we do to get more value out of our work with personas?

You’ll find the answers in this one-day workshop framed for those who have already tried personas, and led by Steve Mulder. The workshop will consist of presentations, discussion and exercises. We’ll talk about what works, and what doesn’t. Throughout the day we’ll talk about introducing more science and rigor into the art of persona-making. Two Norwegian projects will also present their use of personas for advice from Steve and fellow participants.

Part 1: What, Why, How: Why personas help projects to act on what they know about users. Overview of the three approaches to creating personas: qualitative personas, qualitative personas with quantitative validation, and quantitative personas.

Part 2: The Art and Science of User Research: Practical advice on a variety of user research methodologies used to create personas. For example, user interviews that will uncover the right information and insights, including a basic checklist of questions to ask in interviews. For persona creation with quantitative research, how to plan, create, and deploy surveys. See how web site traffic analysis data and CRM data can contribute to more accurate personas.

Part 3: Segmentation and the Breath of Life: Segmentation is the most critical step for persona creation, and Steve will present the various approaches to segmentation, from quick qualitative groupings to quantitative segmentation, including a brief overview of cluster analysis and the process required to generate segmentation based on survey data, web analytics data, and CRM data. And how to turn all that data into memorable stories that people remember.

Part 4: Putting Personas to Work: Personas can impact everything from feature prioritization to a company’s digital strategy. You learn how personas should impact information architecture decisions, and how personas can also contribute to decisions around content creation, visual design, and user testing. Finally, Steve reveals how companies can measure the success of personas and keep them alive.

Participant Presentations:

• Canal Digital: Persona development for cross-market understanding in Nordic web page projects. Martha Lyngnes, Senior Usability Specialist, NetLife Research.

• SOS Children's Villages: Creating personas for an intranet project. Eli Toftøy-Andersen, User Experience Consultant, Steria AS.

Agenda

9:00-9:10 Welcome

9:10-9:40 The what, why and how of personas.

9:40-10:00 The art and science of user research: Qualitative and quantitative methods for gathering information about users.

10:00-10:15 Segmentation: Deciding which personas to make, qualitative methods.

10:30-11:30 Segmentation exercise

11:30-12:00 Segmentation, quantitative methods.

13:00-13:45 Canal Digital: Personas development for cross-market understanding in Nordic web projects.
Martha Lyngnes, Senior Usability Specialist, Netlife Research.
Steve’s advice; General discussion.

13:45-14:00 The breath of life: Tips for making personas more compelling.

14:15-15:00 Exercise

15:00-15:30 Putting personas to work: Using Personas throughout the product lifecycle.

15:30-16:15 SOS Children's Villages: Creating personas for an Intranet project
Eli Toftøy-Andersen, User Experience Consultant, Steria.
Steve’s advice; General discussion.

MELD DEG PÅ!

Steve Mulder helps organizations innovate on customer relationships using social media, social networking, rich interfaces, and emerging digital interactions. He is also the author of The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web and a regular speaker at web conferences. With over 13 years of experience in user research, information architecture, interaction design, and usability, Steve practices what he preaches by delivering successful user experiences that drive business results. He has brought his expertise to a wide range of companies, including Adidas, TD Waterhouse, TripAdvisor, HumanaOne, Talbots, PC Connection, 3M, CVS and Estee Lauder.

www.practicalpersonas.com

Program Committee:
Laura Arlov, Skatteetaten; Ole Kværnø, Kantega; Beate Lofseik, Making Waves; Sigrun Lurås, Det Norske Veritas.

This workshop was arranged jointly by Brukervennlige IT Systemer (BITS) and Web Communication.